W. Bruce Cameron - I Bury Paul

Nov 25, 20100

This past year, millions of television watchers around the world tuned in to the World Cup so they could listen to the melodious music of the vuvuzelas.

The vuvuzela is a plastic horn invented in ancient times by Africans who apparently had access to plastic but not to a flutophone, because the instrument can blow only one horrible note. (The word "vuvuzela" is difficult to translate but means something similar to, "The elephant shares news of his digestive problems.")

With all the horn-blowing going on at the World Cup, it seemed only natural for a soccer match to break out, and before long teams from all over were on the field telling each other: "What did you say? I can't hear you because of the bleeping horns," and, "There sure is something wrong with that elephant!"

Naturally, the Germans were in the World Cup, because (in case you haven't checked lately) Germany is technically part of the world. The team from Deutschland, however, had a competitive edge: a small octopus named Paul.

How something as squishy-looking as an octopus could lend anyone an "edge" may be a bit of a mystery, as is the notion that the Germans call their country "Deutschland" when "Germany" is so much easier to pronounce. As Paul might say, that one is difficult to get your arms around.

Paul sat in his garden and predicted who would win and who would lose the World Cup games. I know what you're thinking: You might like to be under the sea in an octopus' garden in the shade, but isn't it supposed to be the walrus who is Paul? Or maybe you're not thinking that, maybe you grew up listening to the vuvuzela instead of the Beatles. Maybe you're wondering, "Wait a minute, how could an octopus predict the winner of the World Cup with those stupid horns making all that racket?"

At any rate, like any octopus, Paul had a lot of suckers. Some of these suckers truly believed he could see into the future. Included in this group is apparently Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is the democratically elected-through-fraud president of Iran. Ahmadinejad, or "Mammy" as he is known to his friends, called Paul an "agent of western propaganda and superstition."

Maybe in Iran they have a government agency in charge of propaganda and superstition, but when I checked the U.S. government's website, I was able to locate neither such a department nor anything useful to American citizens. So it's doubtful Paul was ever any kind of secret agent.

Regardless, Paul mysteriously died soon after Mammy Ahmadinejad condemned the cephalopod, or so some people claim. Others think the whole death thing is a hoax to sell more albums. (These people are probably wrong, though, because, well, there are no more albums.)

Could the Iranians have used a weapon of mollusk destruction against Paul? It seems unlikely that a top government official would waste any time on a 2-year-old octopus - except, oops, he already did. Even if it was an evil plot, however, it didn't work because the Deutschlanders in Deutschland immediately crowned a new cephalopod as Octopus Paul II. This was reminiscent of when Pope John Paul died and the next pope took the name John Paul II, so apparently octopuses do their elections the same way. (I think most people thought that since John Paul followed Pope Paul the next one would be named John Paul George. Well, I thought so, anyway, but I grew up listening to the Beatles.)

Perhaps what Mammy Ahmadinejad was upset about was that Paul II was elected without anyone stuffing the ballot box or arresting the opposition.

Meanwhile, one website has contracted with the original Paul's cousin, who is named Ollie the Octopus, to predict which electronic gizmos people will buy as gifts for the upcoming holidays. Ollie so far seems to think that the iPad will outsell the electronic version of the vuvuzela and has given eight thumbs down to the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad action figure (comes with 14 million missing ballots).

Will Ollie replace Paul II as America's Next Top Mollusk? Even more important, with Paul I dead, who will run the government department of propaganda and superstition?

I don't know - I can't see the future.